Of glowing dreams and dark awakenings
by Inkfire
Summary: In which Lucy Barker has her little blonde head dazzled by the grandeur of Lucius Malfoy, and Benjamin Barker experiments bitterness, denial, and the unfairness of the world. A one-shot for the crossover challenge on xoxLewrahxox's forum.


**A one-shot for the Crossover challenge on xoxLewrahxox's forum. **

_**Crossover  
Your fic MUST be crossed over with another fandom. It can be any fandom you want, but it must be an actual crossover. (Not, for example, Harry Potter characters watching a specific movie or reading a specific book... they actually have to interact with a character, object, or location from another fandom.)  
Word count must be between 300-700 words. That's right, the minimum word count is 300.**_

**This is a Sweeney Todd/Harry Potter crossover, 660 words long. My first crossover – phew! More explanations about the plot will be placed at the end of the fic. **

"We are late," muttered Lucy Barker impatiently, pulling on her husband's sleeve as they strode up the large path that led to the magnificent manor.

"Not very much," Benjamin replied. They _were_ a little bit late – though it hardly seemed relevant to him. They weren't late enough to be rude, it would only allow them more time to blend in with the crowd.

"We wouldn't be late at all if you'd left Johanna for the elf to take care of earlier!" Lucy fired back, poking his arm angrily. "Give me your _arm!_"

Jumping a little, he raised his arm obediently, for her to lean on. Benjamin breathed deeply into the cool evening's air and reminded himself that Lucy, after all, _would_ know better than he did. He was but a novice, and this was her universe – balls and mansions and lavish grandeur – or it had been, anyway, before she married him. It had been her universe, he repeated in the secret of his own thoughts, and so he straightened his back, oh-so-slightly, and resolved to do her proud. After the evening, they would just fly back to their baby girl and discreet life, after all.

Benjamin stood in a whirling of silky dresses and dutiful house-elves in the large hallway, trying not to look as lost as he felt, and all of a sudden his wife was pulled from his arm – and he watched her smile and curtsey, a most perfect stranger, before a tall blond man kissed her hand.

"Mrs Lucifera Barker, I assume?" the man drawled, and for some reason, Benjamin shuddered.

* * *

"I dislike this man, this Malfoy," he mumbled a few hours later, rocking his little Johanna gently. Their flat, however large and sunny he usually knew it to be, looked admittedly shabby in the gloomy darkness, after the manor's golden magnificence and glowing magical lights. Lucy was combing her hair by the mirror, fair curls that had shone beautifully around her flushed face as she was dancing earlier, and he was reminded that she was born Lucifera Selwyn, a creature of the light, of glowing Galleons and pretty jewellery, and she had married _him_.

"Is it because he said your name sounded a bit common?" she chirped.

They were pure-blooded. They were equals. (_they were in love_)

"Give me some credit, darling, I am not as vain as you are," he said – just a bit too fast. "Hold Johanna, would you?"

Lucy stood and held their child, a soft smile on her lips – he told himself this smile was for him. He kissed those lips gently.

_His angels_.

_She was combing her golden hair, I thought I saw  
Her so patient hands taming down a fire__  
__It was at the middle of our tragedy_

(_Elsa at the mirror,_ Aragon – I did the translation from French)

* * *

He only saw a flash of red, and a blonde head whipping towards him, before the curse slammed into his chest, and his whole world turned black.

He awoke in a dark, icy cell that smelled pungent. For a couple of days it was as though the universe had forgotten about him, as though he had fallen into a black hole and he could only wait until his angels came for him. But Benjamin Barker was in for a nasty surprise, and no angel ever came to lead him away – instead he was marched in front of a court, and told that as one of You-Know-Who's many spies, he was to be shipped off to Azkaban for the next couple of decades.

He saw no blonde head in the sea of angry people staring down at him, but after a while all of their faces were blurring, swimming with his naive tears anyway. For a moment, he kept stupidly hoping for an angel to come down and save him.

It didn't.

(there had been a blond in the crowd, watching him go, but no pained wife. Lucius Malfoy had to hold back a satisfied smirk as his rival was taken away, to the cell that should rightfully have been his.)

(But they didn't live in the era of rightfulness, after all)

_At the top of the hole sit the privileged few  
Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo  
turning beauty to filth and greed..._

_No Place like London,_ Sweeney Todd

**First, I'd like to say that the name Lucifera, which was meant to make Lucy sound more pureblood, is absolutely not questioning her purity, since it means "which brings light and clarity" in Latin. My dictionary said so.  
Credit for the idea from which this crossover was born is due to The Dark Lord's Most Faithful Forum. We have a thread there where we once started randomly inventing the most freaky and/or disgusting fic summaries ever. I came up with this:  
"AU Sweeney Todd/Harry Potter crossover, in which the Barkers, a modest pureblooded family, see their life suddenly falling apart as the infamously sexy Lucius Malfoy decides that Lucy Barker is more natural a blonde than Narcissa and therefore more fitting to stand by his side. Benjamin Barker is sent away to Azkaban, where he meets dark and alluring Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, who will unleash the blackness within his soul, but he is yet to learn that Lucy, under Lucius' guidance, has taken the very same dark path as he has. Will feature Sweeney/Bellatrix, Bellamort, Sweeney/Bellatrix/Voldemort threesome, Lucy/Lucius, bloody plots of revenge by a slightly maddened Narcissa, and probably some it-looks-like-incest-but-it-isn't-really-it's-sick-enough-as-it-is Draco/Johanna in later chapters... and maybe Johanna/Snape too, just so that Alan Rickman doesn't have his role screwed up. (ponders)"  
Well. Quite obviously, I didn't go with the endless crack possibilities. But when I saw that I would have to do a crossover, the alluring idea of putting Lucy and Lucius together came back to me ;) I had loads of ideas for that one, which didn't fit into the 700 word count... and let's face it, I'm too lazy to write them. So it turned into character insight, which is pretty much what I do best... (scratch that – it's all I ever do, actually ^^) Anyway. I was planning to have Narcissa die in childbirth (so that she's out of the way, since I rather like Lucissa and having her cheated on would pain me), and Lucius seeking replacement for her into Lucy. I was thinking that Bellatrix would have been sent to Azkaban under Lucius' testimony, too, and Benjamin turning into Sweeney in prison, he could have met her during the escape in OOTP, and joined the Death Eaters only for his revenge's sake (note that if Lucius had sent many Death Eaters to prison, like Karkaroff did, he probably wouldn't have been forgiven by Voldemort). I'm well aware that Benjamin not wearing the Mark is bothersome for his being accused of working for Voldemort, by the way, which is why I decided to have him judged as some kind of spy. I didn't really go farther than Sweeney's escape in my experiments with the plot... If you think some of my ideas are worth more than a pig could spit, feel free to try them. I'll give them away willingly, and I'll read ;) **


End file.
